Please help! Student about to lose computer..

Hi all, this is my first post and it is a desperate plea for help. Recently my 15" mbp started to go all wonky on me. A few days ago I was using it and suddenly the screen was covered in a ton of tiny discolored blocks as in the attached pictures. I'm not sure if this has something to do with software or hardware but I post it here because I suspect it may be hardware now that I have tried booting from my install disc to reformat and reinstall but as you can see in the pictures it did it there too. Any idea what this could be? I'm long out of warranty and not afraid to go into my computer if it's something I can fix. I'm just freaked out to be w/o a computer as I am in college and desperately need it. Thanks for any help!

Refer to this thread.... Bad graphics card, Apple has extended the warranty on the faulty NVIDEA cards to 3yrs.
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/190256-mac-book-pro-broken-help.html